Same here, but it looks like a Bambi re-release is the most distant of them all. Given all the discussion generated on the UltimateDisney forum by the Dumbo Special Edition announcement, all kinds of films that may potentially be made Platinum or Diamond are flying around, and people are mainly wondering if Fantasia will be pushed back to March 2011, Beauty And The Beast to October 2011, so that Dumbo will have the slot in early 2010, and Alice In Wonderland in October 2010 to coincide with the release of Tim Burton's new film. After that, The Lion King is due, I believe. Bambi isn't even on the horizon, yet, unfortunately.

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment today revealed some additional info on the new Blu-ray Diamond Collection which it is launching with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on 6th October 2009. Essentially the Blu-ray version of the DVD Platinum Collection series , the Diamond Collection comprises of 14 titles including: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Beauty and the Beast; Fantasia and Fantasia 2000; The Lion King; Bambi; Cinderella; Lady and the Tramp; The Little Mermaid; Peter Pan; The Jungle Book; 101 Dalmatians; Sleeping Beauty; and Pinocchio.

Following Snow White, two titles will be selected for release each year – starting with Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia in 2010 – and each will be released from the Disney vault for a limited time. Disney promises that each film will be restored to the highest level of picture and sound, with 1080P picture and 7.1 surround sound, and plenty of interactive Blu-ray exclusive extras will be included.

Great news but does this mean Pinocchio and Sleeping beauty are being released under this diamond collection banner?.......i mean they've just been released,

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment today revealed some additional info on the new Blu-ray Diamond Collection which it is launching with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on 6th October 2009. Essentially the Blu-ray version of the DVD Platinum Collection series , the Diamond Collection comprises of 14 titles including: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; Beauty and the Beast; Fantasia and Fantasia 2000; The Lion King; Bambi; Cinderella; Lady and the Tramp; The Little Mermaid; Peter Pan; The Jungle Book; 101 Dalmatians; Sleeping Beauty; and Pinocchio.

Following Snow White, two titles will be selected for release each year – starting with Beauty and the Beast and Fantasia in 2010 – and each will be released from the Disney vault for a limited time. Disney promises that each film will be restored to the highest level of picture and sound, with 1080P picture and 7.1 surround sound, and plenty of interactive Blu-ray exclusive extras will be included.

Great news but does this mean Pinocchio and Sleeping beauty are being released under this diamond collection banner?.......i mean they've just been released,

I am now convinced that Disney will be continuing the Platinum Edition line as well as introducing the Diamond Edition line.

The films listed in the article as up for a Diamond release have all been released in the past as a Platinum, so the Diamonds are like Platinum encores, but now also on Blu-Ray. Of course, Fantasia and Fantasia/2000 have not yet had Platinums, yet maybe Disney felt they were special and/or significant enough to get the full Diamond without a pre-existing Platinum. In any case, bring on the Fantasia Diamond! And also, Aladdin is not included in the Diamond line, but we've known this would happen anyway. I'm surprised at the omission of Alice In Wonderland though. I had heard that it was going to replace Aladdin's slot in the next round of Platinums (which we now call Diamonds).

The Platinum line IS continuing, the next Platinum release is Dumbo. It didn't say it in that red ad I posted a page back, but it did say "Platinum Edition" on the Ultimate Disney news page. Not only this, but The Rescuers has a Platinum release planned for 2013. Diamonds and Platinums will come out alongside each other, I'm 90% sure. I'm just not sure what other films they're going to pick for Platinum releases between Dumbo and The Rescuers. I vote for The Fox And The Hound, The Sword In The Stone, Tarzan, Pocahontas, Mulan and Lilo & Stitch.

aahh, the good ol' House of Mouse - can't say I'm a BIG fan but I do respect their legacy of work (except for that f**king blatant rip-ff of KIMBA THE WHITE LION!). THE JUNGLE BOOK and TARZAN are my personal favourites. Does anyone know if there has been or ever will be any special edition dvds of THE BLACK CAULDRON...?I remember loving this film as a kid - it was noticeably darker and different to previous Disney Animated Features and was not very well-recieved upon it's release. The Horned King was creepy!

and how about DRAGONSLAYER? I think that was a Disney / Paramount gig but who has the dvd rights? a special edition of this film would be cool.

Apparently the Diamond Edition line will be Blu-Ray only, which is pretty interesting. I still think that the films planned for Diamond will also have a DVD release but not under the Diamond banner, and probably with significantly less Special Features (as some of the Special Features advertised for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs appear possibly only on Blu-Ray).

Excitement is reaching unprecedented levels, both for this release (with the obviously gorgeous restoration) and for Fantasia (and Fantasia/2000), especially when I mentally superimpose the brilliance of the Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs restoration over the imagery of Fantasia.

ONLY 21 DAYS TO GO FOR SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS!!!!! YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

Wasn't the bulk of this done for the fancy release a few years back? It doesn't look any different to my current copy. It is kind of funny that Amazon have included all the reviews of that edition on the sales page for this.

Wasn't the bulk of this done for the fancy release a few years back? It doesn't look any different to my current copy.

Probably, maybe, who knows? The important difference between the two is that I don't own the first one.

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It is kind of funny that Amazon have included all the reviews of that edition on the sales page for this.

Amazon sucks in that regard. The reviews posted are displayed on the pages of all editions of a particular thing, so even though the reviews themselves may have been specific to a particular product, you wouldn't know which one they're referring to because it's displayed on all of them.

The last one was too. And as a completely ignorant layman I'd assume the clean up to that was a substantially larger leap than this given all the bumf that came with it showing the major difference in the print and going on and on about the amount of work and a very long booklet detailing bits of it. Which may be why I'm not seeing a great deal of difference here.

Doesn't the Beaver link say you don't see as much difference with animation as you do with live action?

It`s too bad that they don`t compare it with the older dvd versions so we could really see how much of a difference it is. On the other hand: I really, really couldn`t care less if it does look better or not. I don`t own the film yet so I`ll be getting the blu-ray for sure. Am I understanding you correctly that you say that the older dvd version looks the same as the blu-ray? cause that`s quite hard to believe

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Jules: "What" ain't no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What? Brett: What? Jules: ENGLISH, MOTHERFUCKER! DO-YOU-SPEAK-IT?

The last one was too. And as a completely ignorant layman I'd assume the clean up to that was a substantially larger leap than this given all the bumf that came with it showing the major difference in the print and going on and on about the amount of work and a very long booklet detailing bits of it. Which may be why I'm not seeing a great deal of difference here.

The last release was made by scanning a high quality print, the result of which was then cleaned up by Lowry Digital.

For this release Disney went back to the original negative; it was a completely new, start from scratch restoration. The new techniques available are far more advanced than those used on the old release. The last one was primarily done for DVD. This one is a state of he art, archival grade restoration and as such this is very possibly the last restoration Snow White will ever need.

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Doesn't the Beaver link say you don't see as much difference with animation as you do with live action?

It does but I disagree. One of the hardest things to render well in video is line art. Also a lot of the subtlety of the painted backdrops is lost on DVD. The Disney DVDs are far better than most, but the Blu rays released thus far have both been remarkable. As they also came with a DVD copy I have compared them and there is a marked difference; even more than the one you see when you look at screen captures.

Apparently the Diamond Edition line will be Blu-Ray only, which is pretty interesting. I still think that the films planned for Diamond will also have a DVD release but not under the Diamond banner, and probably with significantly less Special Features (as some of the Special Features advertised for Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs appear possibly only on Blu-Ray).

The new Snow White release has an audio commentry by Walt Disney! He died over 40 years ago so that must be a selection of audio interviews as I don`t think they did full length audio commentries for movies when he was alive!